An Interview With Edward Sylvan
The Resilience Project seeds will keep these incredible survivors’ stories alive by connecting the past and the present. Join me in fostering tolerance, kindness, and healing through art. Let’s create a world where the tragedy of the Holocaust can, truly, never happen again — to anyone.
As a part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cheryl Reibel.
Cheryl Reibel attended New York University for a BA in Journalism. She spent a semester at Tel Aviv University studying History. She then attended the New School in New York City with a certificate in Human Behavior.
Cheryl has always had an interest in the stories of different people but none measured up to the experiences of what the history of the Holocaust imposed on them and the resilience of the Jewish People as a whole.
Growing up in a community of Holocaust survivors, Cheryl was immersed in their tales of courage and survival. By tapping into these childhood memories and bringing these stories to life as poems, Cheryl seeks to empower the next generation to build a better, kinder world, and never forget the lessons of the past.
She is a great believer in humanity’s kindness and sensitivity to others and the decision to write this book is a reflection of those beliefs.
As her two daughters move into their adult lives, she can already see glimmers of change for the better. She is available for lectures or in-class teaching.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I am Cheryl Reibel, and “Resilience” is my book of illustrated poetry.
Each poem is based on the real story of a Jewish child or teenager who lived through the Holocaust. Each story is dear to my heart because they are also my family’s stories.
My childhood brimmed with their tales of faith, fear and endurance. My parents, my aunts, my uncles, my neighbors — all of them were survivors.
I went on to study Journalism and Public Relations at New York University and spent a semester at Tel Aviv University studying History. I received my certificate in Human Behavior from the New School in New York City.
As I grew up, no story could ever compare what I heard around the dining room table and in the little park across the street from the school, told by people I thought of as my own family. Later, I worked with young adults in transition programs and gifted students in the arts at charter schools. I am retired and devoted to teaching.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or change your life? Can you share a story about that?
The Diary of Anne Frank — her dreams under a life-threatening circumstance. I was ill as a child for two years, and my mother read me the book; I had dreams of recovering and hope.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?
I was fortunate enough to be able to use my experience as an educational counselor for school and university placement to create a transition program for these high school students.
I picked a School of the Arts, which was referred to as a charter school, and is funded by the city, and only the best of the best talent is admitted.
It was a school for talented schools in the arts from low-income area.
The school was composed of 90% black students and the rest from immigrant cultures with English as a second language, many parents working, some night shifts, unemployed, broken homes, non-interested parents, and foster children.
Because the student’s graduation rates were 42%, so there was a lot of work to do to pick proper placement for the students to graduate.
My training and, honestly, my interest in the students, and my soft personality were a perfect match.
The first day I entered the classroom, there were was a lot of whispering between the students and smirking, eyes rolled, I overheard from a few “Here’s another rich white lady to come in to babysit us…”.
I had gotten no respect or attention. I pondered about what to do, so after a week of being that “lady” and worse, a Jewish lady, I wore a Star of David on my neck, so that was commented on as well.
That was the breaking point. I asked the students about their families. They brought up prejudice, slavery, isolation, and bullying. I commented with empathy while they chuckled when I said I wanted to tell them my family story.
I spoke about both my parents at an early age and the Holocaust. My parents’ stories are not typical of people who had to go into camps; they were both in hiding (as presented at the end of my book).
They listened to my mother’s story, and by the next day, not only did they open the door for me, they sat on the edge of their seats and wanted to hear more.
I became one of their family, familiar with their struggles that they thought were only theirs. For a few weeks, the class became a social psychology class of the Holocaust and their relationship to these stories of kids their age.
It was Chanukah, and I brought in latkes, treats, doughnuts, dreidels, and chocolate money. They have their meals at school, so this was a special treat for them. They related oil burning on the Menorah to their hopes and dreams. At that point, the school permitted me to teach other classrooms to bring about hopes and dreams moving on and being successful.
Honestly, when they called me into the office, I thought they would want me to leave.
So the stories resonated with the students, and they told others, and before we knew it, the History of the strength of our young people filled the halls. It was so beautiful, and soon for their reading class, I brought in books of other children to read.
We read them, but these were visual students with short attention spans, as they all have now in the texting generation, so they did not resonate with my stories.
So again, I pondered what to do; that was the birth of my exhibit and book. The artwork was oils related to the poetry I wrote of each story of 30 words or less, 37 in all.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
As I left the Holocaust museum in Washington DC around the spring of 2019, my true inspiration that most of the schoolchildren were on the steps texting on their phones and kidding around while on a class trip.
I would ask why they were not inside, and they said they already read Anne Frank and had been there every year and saw the exhibit and watched testimonies but could not understand the context, the importance, not alone the accents. (No disrespect intended.)
I showed them and read stories in my book, and they each woke up relating to these stories.
As I unfolded the History, more and more students came to watch and listen.
Though I was pretty much a street entertainer, the teachers came out when they heard the students with excitement about what they saw. I gave each teacher a book for their bus and built a website and video with a young Christian Uber driver who drove me around.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
The most interesting story is my family’s story :
Minha and Pearl Reibel hid in a small, dark attic through the Holocaust and World War II — Four years of silence and fear. Janina Ryback, the woman of the house, risked her life to hide the two sisters. There was not much she could spare, besides food scraps and secrecy, but at least the girls — and their brothers hiding in a nearby cemetery — would survive.
Mrs. Ryback was careful not to let her husband, a Nazi Officer, find the girls. When he went to work, she would knock on the attic wall to let them know they could move about without being heard. To help these young girls keep their hands and minds busy, Mrs. Ryback gave them old linens to embroider.
Huddled together, they covered handkerchiefs with beautiful flowers and waited out the war. They survived.
Janina Rybak is honored by Yad Vashem, a museum complex dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, on “The Walk of the Righteous Guide” in Israel. The sisters never stopped embroidering, and the handkerchief they made while in hiding is a testament to the beauty of resilience.
These two young women were my aunts. Their hidden brothers were my father, Joseph Reibel, and his brother Adam.
Resilience, a collection of 37 fully-illustrated poems, was originally inspired by the stories they shared with me.
These poems are about my aunts before and many years later after the Holocaust:
Have the seasons changed
the icicles gone
is the warm sun shining
have the flowers begun to bloom
our flowers will not wither
Has another year gone by
how old are we
skirts shorter
bodies thinner
behind wood of the kind
under the roof of a killer
our flowers will not wither
Creating colors in the dark
waiting to breathe aloud
only our fingers can move silently
for one more stitch
one more flower
our flowers will not wither
The war breaks
the last stitch breaks
their hands break
their hearts break
promise to never let go breaks
One loves a man
With US papers
The other insists on Israel
8000 miles
2 continents
2 languages
26 years pass
Grandchildren blossom
A sweet bouquet in the arms
of the righteous
Their flowers did not wither
An interesting sidebar to the story is about 15 years after the Holocaust, my father brought over Mrs. Ryback to the US for a reunion of the siblings and live with us for a year. My father thought she would have an interest in seeing me in the US, but her only interest was to cook for the family every night after having to have fed them scraps of food during the four years that they endured hiding during the Holocaust.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
It has been more than 70 years since the Holocaust, and, one by one, we are losing our survivors to the march of time. This decade may well be the last where we will be able to hear their stories from their lips. We are losing these wells of strength, wisdom, and humanity, and already, we are making the mistake of following the past.
But we have a choice. We can learn from it, instead. The Resilience Project seeds will keep these incredible survivors’ stories alive by connecting the past and the present.
Join me in fostering tolerance, kindness, and healing through art. Let’s create a world where the tragedy of the Holocaust can, truly, never happen again — to anyone.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
Alexander Vesely, Dr. Viktor Frankl’s only grandson. He read my book, saw its meaning, and wrote the forward.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
By being open to reading it and understanding its meaning and impact by being concerned with young and teen students. The politicians see the need for students to relate to.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
To be in charge and command of others with their respect.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
The artwork is presented as if created by a child, with the innocence and inner strength of an abstract, imaginative mind. I learned that the book has a social impact and also a market of every ethnicity, race, geographic location, and financial difference.
Common people of all ages appreciated it, so I would focus on a larger audience because the words and imagery communicated the basic goodness and humanity that connects us, even as evil and tyranny continue to reappear in our world.
The brevity and simplicity of the poetry capture these young survivors’ childlike voices, who found ways to cope and endure, to find kindness amid cruelty and hope amid despair. Time is very important. We don’t know what’s going to happen in life, how the pandemic stopped all my exhibits and book signing. Thank God we are fortunate to be well in life.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote?”
“The most important thing that you can give someone is our time and attention.” I wrote this quote.
Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Then I knew real History had to be recorded for those who did not know the six million who perished in camps. So I found a young promising science writer Anna, to help edit the history portion for children to absorb.
At first, she said no to the idea because the subject was so dark, but she agreed she would intersect the History once she read the poems.
As I love working with young people, they were in their late twenties at the time. They all have taken off in their passions, and we created a small family together.
We had an exhibit made of 12; then 24, then I pushed to 37 for the meaning of the numbers that you are the first to interpret without my explanation.
I had these oils, only one copy, and decided to make a book of them before they would get old. There was a switch here. While bringing in the oils for display, I found an old couple in a retirement home, the Rothenbergs, who had the passion for restoring old pictures by a high-resolution computer.
Is there a person in the world or the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them.
Albert Bourla (the CEO of Pfizer) I would ask him, “How did your parents as Holocaust survivors influence you as a child? Did you have dreams of saving the world? Would you read my book and give me your feedback on it?”
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Youtube @Resilience — Cheryl Reibel and the website at www.Resiliencethebook.org
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Cheryl Reibel Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.